Homemade Pizza for a Cool Evening

The evenings and mornings are getting a lot cooler. I know it won’t be long now until the garden is completely tucked in for the winter. At that point, our days get a lot easier, in that the harvesting is done. The garden will have a thick layer of composted manure on it, the fall rye will have been sown and I can move on to other things.

What other things? For starters, sleeping in a bit would be nice. I love the days of October as I can lollygag around in the mornings. The laying hens are a lot more self sufficient than either pigs or meat birds. The hens don’t care if I feed them at 7 am or 11 am. Love those hens!

The freezers are full, not only of meat but also berries and frozen greens, broccoli and cauliflower. The sauerkraut has been made and canned and put away. Later in the Fall will come the time for pulling the berries out of the freezer and making jam or wine or both.

A few years ago, I canned a lot of tomato sauce and we still have a few jars left. We also have quite a few jars of homemade Pizza Sauce on hand and it is so tasty.

Here’s a recipe for Sicilian Pizza Crust – get a batch of dough ready and add whatever toppings you like or have on hand.

The crust:

1 pkt (2 1/4 tsp. yeast)

2 cups warm water

1 tbsp salt

4 tbsps olive oil

5 cups flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. I like to let it sit for 10 – 15 minutes. Then stir in the salt and olive oil. Finally, add in the flour.

Knead the dough about one minute, just until it is smooth. Let it sit and rest for about 20 minutes. (Great time to sit back and have a glass of wine)

Then cover and keep the dough warm for 1/2 hour. I usually turn on the oven, set the bowl with the dough on top and cover with a clean tea towel. Go away (maybe have another glass of wine).

Cover your pizza pan with olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil is the best kind of oil you can ever use. Buy it in bulk and transfer some to a small bottle to keep on the counter. Keep it close by and use it all the time. Your body will thank you for it.

Here come the toppings – homegrown onions, peppers, garlic and oregano. I added some store bought mushrooms and some pizza sausage. Also had to buy the cheese, as we don’t have a cow and don’t have access to the goat cheese we usually get (which is awesome and I wish my friend would come back so we could get a Lot more!)

Homegrown Oregano, what is better than using lots of fresh herbs in your food? Bonus that I just clipped off a branch in order to make the pizza. There’s nothing like using fresh herbs – try it and put that salt shaker away. Herbs taste much better!

Back to the dough – split the dough into 3 or 4 separate balls – I do 3, because we like a bit thicker pizza crust. If your family really likes thin crust pizza better, you can get 4 balls of dough out of the recipe.

Press out your dough onto the coated pizza pan. Take the other 2 or 3 balls, put them in separate containers and toss them in the freezer. Now you’ll be able to quickly make a pizza when you are running out of time or ideas for creative dinners.

The Pizza Sauce – this tastes so good. If you want me to put up the recipe for this sauce, leave me a comment and I will post it. This sauce is nice and thick and we love it. I can it in half-pint jars and we use a whole jar on one pizza.

Add your toppings and bake in a preheated oven. 400 degrees and bake for about 18 minutes.

Pour a nice glass of red wine (ok, another glass of wine) and enjoy with your dinner. Add a green salad and you are set to go!